Desert Storms
by RikkuMcClowFox
Summary: Some people say memories are nothing more than memories. That they will eventually fade away, unmissed. My memories are already fading away... and I'm not ready to let them go. Not now... Not ever.' Sequel to Desert Ruins. SilvAmy /ON HOLD/


**Desert Storms**

**A.N: ...I'M ALIVE!!! I'm not dead! WAHWHO!!! Ahem, I'll get right to the point here, this started out as a oneshot... but I doubt any of you would have the attention span to read a 29 page oneshot. I just hihgly doubt it. So, I decided to make this a threeshot (three chapters.) I may add more chapters depending on how reviews go, but right now, 3. I will be updating Angelz in Training soon my friends. SOON! With Christmas and all that stuff going on, I've been mega busy and I apologize to all my fans out there. I love you all and you all rock! **

**Disclaimer: Amy, Silver, Mighty, Sonic, and Honey are all owned by Sega and all related characters in the future are also custody of Sega unless stated otherwise. I do own Rikku Fox.**

**Without futher ado, here ya go!**

_Amy's P.O.V_

_Memories. _

_It's funny how such a simple word like that can hold so much pain, angst, fear, worry, happiness, anger, joy, love, and hope. Just two syllables hold that power. Just two meaningless syllables until one person combines them in a one joined word that can bring joy to others and extreme stabs of pain to others. _

_And you know, the sad thing is, memories eventually fade away. Until the frizzled images inside your mind become unrecognizable. You're forced to live the rest of your life stumbling around that frazzled image until something jogs your memory and that one picture becomes as clear as day, bringing back all of feelings with it. _

_A few months later, the cycle repeats. The memory that you reclaimed as your own suddenly slides from your grasp and leaves you stumbling around in the darkness again…until eventually you forget about the image or memory. You lose interest in the past and waltz around in the light, leaving your darkened memories out of reach within the confines of your mind. You swear never to let them see the light of day and soon, they disappear forever. Lost in an abyss of forgotten pictures of the past, the memories just drift into the nothingness we despise. _

_The nothingness that we loathe entirely is actually created by our own forgetfulness._

_The problem is, it happens to everyone. There's no known way to stop us from forgetting what we don't know we forget, what we wish we could forget, or what we purposely forget. It's human and animal nature. It's one of our flaws that create what we become. _

_Some of us though, try to fight letting our memories lose. We fight it with all we have until our souls cry out in pain and suddenly snap. Until we are beaten and bloody, left to die there on a church floor where we battle whoever's up there for our memories that we eventually lose, wherever we want to or not. _

_There are few people that actually dare to challenge life's crazily unfair rules. Even fewer win. Many lose, and are left with nothing to hold accountable for his or her actions. No proof that they lost or even challenged life to begin with; nothing. You can say that their lives are wasted trying to battle the rules that someone up there has barred down on us, but I don't think so._

_They don't waste their lives in my opinion. They fight for their memories of old loved ones, fallen sons and/or daughters, old comrades that they don't have pictures of… In my opinion, they fight so that their old once kindled burning flame doesn't die away into a burnt out whisk on a candle. _

_You never know until you try. _

_You will never know if you're one of those lucky few that can challenge a higher power, fight them, win, and somehow glue the memories that are slowly pealing away back onto the bulletin board that is your mind forever. A forever love for a lost one recaptured and bottled for an eternity inside that unwilling to give up soul… That's the greatest gift in itself._

_And that's why people spend the rest of their life fighting, losing, getting up, and returning to their fighting. For an even greater joy beyond those that can't be found on this industrial planet alone. _

_You may have guessed by now, but I am one of those people that are fighting for their memories._

_I haven't won yet, but I'm determined to at least claim a certain memory that I'm not really supposed to have. It's funny… I don't even remember his name anymore. Time, age, and responsibility is finally catching up with me after endlessly wasting my youth pursuing my thought to be true love… Sonic._

_Humph, yeah right. True love all right… true heartbreak. I can't even remember what he did that caused my heart to just shatter into millions shards of glass cutting my hands as I desperately tried countless times to mend the fragile object that was my heart._

_It was shattered, that was the important part. It was shattered past repair and there was nothing I could do. No glue could fill in the still visible cracks; no light would ever shine purely through it. _

_I think when I first started resenting my once true-blue hero, was when a handful of my memories were erased for some reason. I just remember this intense pain that stabs my still bleeding mental wound every time I try and recall what happened. I eventually gave up. On trying to remember and trying to win him over. It just wasn't worth my time._

_But, it just wasn't Sonic I gave up on. I gave up on my old life, my old ways. I gave up my so-called friends and forced myself to try and make it out on my own. Yes, I know that seems cold, but they thought of my at a nuisance at the time. If they could just see me now…_

_That's I guess how I met Rikku and Honey. Blindly clawing around on this barren earth by myself without a purpose in the world, just like they were. Rikku with her downright spunky personality, trying to open her own shop while thoughtful and elegant Honey was trying to fruitlessly root her way into the fashion world. _

_I was taught the true meaning of friendship by these two. There for one another, got each others' backs, therapists when needed, respects your feelings but ain't afraid to joke around at appropriate times…_

_Friends are just these great people who play an important role in this crazy game of life. _

_Bottom line: I've changed drastically in these seven years I've been away from my original friends if that's what you want to call them. To me, they're just grouped into the category of unwanted memories that I would like to toss down that dark abyss of despise; never hoping or dreaming for them to return and haunt me once again. _

_But there is one, just one, tiny memory I would like to host out of the forgotten zone and forever lock it in my mind._

_It's of… him. _

_The gray hedgehog whose name forever escapes my lips. The male who walked with me across desert plains, although any of our conversations I can not recall. The boy who I'm not supposed to remember. Whose name, face, voice, touch, and figure I, try as I might, can not remember. _

_The gray male hedgehog who stole my heart that desert day and probably doesn't even remember me (as we both met under circumstances I don't remember and our memories were supposedly wiped). So how, you ask, do you remember him? _

_The sad truth is… I don't._

_But I can remember his love and my love for him. I can remember that in those desert ruins, I gave him the key to my heart and he accepted it without a second thought. Even though no words were exchanged we both cling onto that memory, even now. At least… I do. _

_Once you give someone the key to your heart, you can never ask for it back. You can snatch it away or give them a fake or beat them up for it, but you can never just ask for it back. That person can always return it and leave you heartbroken, but one day, one day, you'll find the one who will keep that key close to his heart and protect if forever. The one you'll love until the day you part from this world. _

_I've already found that one, gave him my key, and he is still protecting it… even if he can't remember who I am. I know I was way too young to be giving away the key to my heart to someone I hardly knew, but sometimes… you just know. I gave Sonic my key countless times and yet he always gave it back in the end or tried to throw it into some unheard of ditch. _

"Amy?"

_Sonic was selfish as I can now see. He only cared about his freedom but never took in the feelings that others were trying to let out around him, especially me. I kept thinking, 'Maybe this time it will open his eyes. Maybe this time he will see how much I would do for him'. _

_He never did. Those foggy green eyes that I used to long to look into were never cleared. My mind soon comprehended that and I moved on. Sonic, however, never really grew up. He always longed for running but never offered love for anyone else expects those that ran with him. I was never among those people, although I tried. _

"Amy?"

_I'm blazing my own path now. Trying to scrap together every last detail I can manage of my true love. I haven't been able to find him… yet, but I continue searching. Rikku, Honey, and I now travel around the world in search of our own heart's desires. Mine being my memories, Rikku's, true love, and Honey's being independence. _

"Amy?"

_Call us fools if that it was you think, but I actually enjoy the feeling of freedom beneath my wings. Of no strings tying me down; of love following me with every footstep I take…_

_And, even though I can't recall that love… I know that it's with me, wherever I shall go._

"AMY!!" screamed a familiar voice, her cries finally reaching my tuned out senses. My jade green eyes blinked twice as I focused in on the view around me, finally coming out from my little zone.

Endless sand dunes piled on one another as the wind swept gracefully over the dunes and spread the grains out to the hungry ocean of sand below. The hot bright sun pounded down on my figure and the rest of the desert. I gazed out at the setting sun across the desert horizon, my eyes being focused on that point even while my thoughts drifted… to you. It really was quite amazing.

The usually sand colored fog that covered the area before my feet was penetrated by fierce winds that blew that morning. That was actually a good thing considering it was over a hundred feet drop just a few paces in front of my feet, leading into a vast valley below that me and my team were examining that evening. For some reason, something in the very back on my mind tugged at me that I've been here before. Though… I don't remember.

Nowadays, my thoughts always drifted to you for some reason. And as I stood here staring at the colored scene if front of me, my mind flashes back to those grainy black and white pictures of you and I long ago. Funny how young and naïve we were then…

If you had to pick me out from a crowd of people, you probably wouldn't recognize me now. The last time you saw me was when I was twelve and still Sonic-obsessed. But don't worry now, I'm over him and looking toward the future. Mainly… to finding you.

I had grown quite gracefully in the past seven years. My short pink quills, red dress, chunky red boots, and twelve year-old body were gone. The pink quills had transformed into beautiful, flowing elfin like hair with a blue ribbon tied at the side to keep my locks out of my gaze. My childish red dress was exchanged for a long blue dress that didn't flip out and flowed around my now slim and curvaceous body. Ending at my knees, the dress had a square neckline with two straps around the neck. I had decided on adding a translucent, lengthy, azure, attractive jacket over my slender shoulders and adding some flare to my dull outfit. The jacket reached all the way down to my ankles and fanned away from my body at the waist. A russet sash tied around my small waist kept the jacket to my body. My jacket cuffed at my elbows and a pair of flimsy sapphire gloves ran from my elbows all the way to my now elegant fingertips. A set of knee-length boots matched the gloves perfectly and sky-colored feathery cuffs lined both of them. My silly Piko-Piko Hammer was also replaced with an elegant silver and blue elfin crossbow. All and all, I had it going on now.

"Are you finally out of your daze?" came a peppy voice from my right side. Surprised by the sudden voice and thinking I was alone, I turned on my heels to find Rikku standing besides me with her hands on her hips. "I've been trying to get your attention for fifteen minutes now. What were you thinking about that was oh so important."

Like me, Rikku had also aged as time caught up with her. The vixen now had long, thick human hair held back by an extended emerald ribbon that started at her neck and ended with a bow at the middle of her back. Her bangs that would usually hang over her left hazel eye were pulled back into the main hair part, leaving the lock slightly covering the fox's left eye. She had dawned on a green tank top and a pair of buckskin medium-brown, fingerless gloves that went all the way to her upper arm before cuffing downwards. Light brown doeskin pouches decorated the sides of her arms and the brown belt looped around her beige mini-skirt. A pair of dark onyx leggings with holes severed along the sides showed her long legs and slightly curvy form before disappearing beneath her dark auburn buckskin boots. A new, large, sparkling silver shuriken with bright green light-up blades was attached to the side at her belt, replacing her now cracked daggers.

A small smile crossed my lips as I returned my gaze to the horizon. "Sorry. Just thinking."

"'Bout what?" Rikku persisted, taking a step closer to me with her hands still set on her hips. "You know you can tell me. I can keep secrets… Unlike you-know-who."

A laugh escaped my lips as I stumbled back a step. "Honey can keep secrets. I've already told her what I'm searching for on this journey and she hasn't told you," I raised one of my eyebrows at my younger companion. "Has she?"

"Now if she did, do you really think I would be asking!" Rikku snapped, giving me a small push with fake anger. "And I'm insulted that you tell Honey your secrets, and not me. That hurts, Amy. That really hurts." With fake sadness, Rikku turned her back on me and wiped away an imaginary tear.

"Like you could keep a secret!" I laughed. I enjoyed laughing now. Before, laughing was just a giggle or two I let lose to catch Sonic's attention or a nervous laugh. Now, I laugh because I am happy, because I am free. I know it seems stupid on how such a little thing like that could make someone so happy, but it can. Laughing, many take for granted.

"I could if you would trust me!" the female fox objected, forgetting her little act and beginning to run circle around me. "Come on! Tell me! Tell me please?" she begged, trying to catch my hidden expression beneath my hands clasped over my laughing face. "Now come on! Is it a boy? Hm? I bet it's a boy. I knew it! You're in love aren't ya! So what's his name? Do I know him? How old is he? Does he have any hunky brothers that need a vixeny girlfriend? Huh?"

At this point I couldn't stop laughing as a nervous blush rose to my face. Oh, how close you are Rikku. "It's not a boy. I told you I wasn't one to fall in love." Liar…

The golden vixen scoffed. "Yeah right. I can spot love a mile away and you, my friend, are glowing with it! Now tell me about him!" She leaned forward as if to say 'I'm-all-ears'.

"You're too noisy for your own good," laughed a female voice behind me.

Pivoting on my heels while Rikku straightened and folded her hands behind her head for the third time, we both spotted our third team member sprawled out sun-bathing on a flat rock atop a pile of smaller russet colored ones. The feline was sprawled out on her back with her head hanging downward off to the right side as she looked in our direction.

My grin grew as my jade eyes locked with her upside-down ocean blue ones. "Hey Honey."

Tussled, but still velvet-like locks framed Honey's perfect, heart-shaped face and white muzzle. Her sleek golden-yellow fur was dazzling in the afternoon sunset bouncing of her well-muscled and curvaceous form. A pair of red and black goggles that looked more like sunglasses were set in front of her black-tipped ears and kept her curls out of her piercing gaze. A yarn red sweater wrapped around her upper arms, leaving her swam-like neck and shoulders bare. The sweater's sleeves only went to her elbows before ending and showing off her muscular, but still feminine, arms. A set of long, thick, curved black nails were shown through her fingerless black gloves with red latches on either side. Her flat stomach was more than revealed, as the sweater only covered what was needed for her chest. A pair of black pants with red latches connecting it to her sweater covered the cat's bottom half. One blood red leg pouch was attached to Honey's upper left leg, serving as her place to keep her silver knuckle bands for fighting. Two black hiking boots also with red latches up the sides finished off her appearance.

Rolling on her stomach, Honey smirked at the two of us. "So what is Rikku pestering you about this time?" she asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and gazing at me.

"I am NOT pestering! Asking, yes. But pestering is so not me!" Rikku defended.

I laced my fingers together and stretched them downward as I slyly grinned, both Honey and me ignoring Rikku's comment. "Oh she was just asking about you-know-who." I emphasized you-know-who by putting a little teasing in my tone of voice.

Honey's smile broadened as her gaze flickered to a confused Rikku. "Oh! You mean him?" I could tell she was teasing, but somehow, underneath her sarcastic exterior, I could tell she was being serious. I mean, with her and Mighty, she should be the one to understand these types of things.

"So it is a guy!" Rikku chimed in, bouncing back on the balls of her feet. "Come on, Amy! Don't keep me waiting all day! Spill the beans!"

A shy blush suddenly came over my cheeks as my thoughts once again drifted back to the grainy and fragmented images of you. Closing my eyes to try to focus on them more, I unconsciously folded my hands over my heart in a silent prayer. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel Rikku's hazel gaze upon me and Honey's amused expression.

The foggy, unreadable pixels were placed before my eyes, playing in motion on a desert plain. I could make out my younger self on one side, but if I hadn't studied these pictures for a good ten years, I would have never made out that frazzled image to be you beside me. In my younger days, I would have probably thought it was Sonic, but not now.

Again and again the grainy scene played over and over to a certain point before starting again. Our voices were hidden by static as I tried and tried to focus in on the image and our exact words. I furrowed my brow together in concentration as the image replayed itself, this time somewhat clearer. The voices were still static, but now I could just make out a large cave behind us, almost blending into the desert.

After several more attempts at analyzing it, I finally gave up and let the memory fade back into that dark hole that I dug it up from every day. Every day I try and remember, every day I lose some of my memories, every day more time passes and I still haven't found you.

My jade eyes flickered open in disappointment. I made out a cave, wahwho. Still couldn't recall anything about you.

"Amy?"

I looked up suddenly as Honey's concerned voice reached my ears. Right in front of my face were my two companions; Rikku, squatting down on her ankles and staring up at me with worry and Honey reaching my height and giving me a knowing smile.

"You'll be able to remember him some day," Honey whispered, just loud enough for me to hear but soft enough so Rikku couldn't. "Trust me on that." Her ocean eyes sparkled with in an understanding matter. She was still searching for Mighty too as she tried to live without him. Hence, her statement 'You don't need a man to get you independence. That's something I'm trying to prove to myself too.'

A sad smile crossed my lips in return to her kind words. "I know," I whispered, the same words I keep repeating and repeating to myself over and over every day passing my lips. I know I'm lying to myself.

"Well are we just gonna sit here all day, or are we going do some treasure hunting?" Rikku chimed in, standing up and punching her fist in the air before bringing it back down. Her hazel eyes sparked to life with the peppiness that kept us on our toes. I knew she felt left out of the loop, but the female fox was trying to hide by changing the subject and making me 'not so sad' as she put it. The vixen always did this whenever my thoughts went back to you.

Putting her hands on her hips, Honey smirked at Rikku. "You have no patience," she chuckled, walking away from me and looking out at the grand valley with the ancient relics.

"I lost my patience while you two were sharing secrets," Rikku replied, teasing present in her tone. "And you know I have a lot of secrets too, but you can forget me telling them to you two now!"

"Like what?" the yellow female laughed, tossing her black hair over one shoulder as she undid her binoculars from her red cargo belt. "The fact that you actually eat the deserts you are planning to 'take home to your brother'?"

"How'd you find out!?! And I don't eat all of them… I saved him the crumbs."

"I was fishing for a guess. Oh, and crumbs don't count," Honey countered, focusing in on the ruins before her with her special binoculars made by Rikku herself. "Hm… Three entrances, one blocked by sand…" Removing the binoculars, Honey looked towards me. "Which one?"

"Here," I said, walking up next to her with my hand outstretched. "Let me see."

Honey handed over the gray and silver binoculars and arched her back in a cat-like stretch. "Why are we going through this desert again?"

Rikku stamped her foot. "Because across this desert in the only way to Linca Port, where we can find a ship to take us to Asia for some serious shopping. There are buzzards around here so we can't take the Phoenix either. I'm not repairing that thing again." The Phoenix was Rikku's newest aircraft and basically our home.

"Fine, but why do we have to investigate these ruins?" Honey made imaginary quotation marks in the air to emphasize 'investigate', her blue eyes looking towards Rikku.

"I told you. If we find something valuable or really, really, really, really, really, really-"

"I get the really already!" interrupted Honey, her blue gaze showing annoyance.

Rikku blinked in surprise, which soon turned into a glare. "There's a nice way to tell people to stop, you know. .Anyways, reeallly old, then we can use it to pay off the ship crew to take us to Asia. The traveling prices are really high these days and I do not want to spend more time in Linca them we have to."

If there was one thing Rikku hated, it was going back to her hometown. The golden female wouldn't tell either of us why, but from what we both gathered, she had some… family issues. Hence the reason, she ran away seven years ago and met up with me and Honey while we were about to leave New York. Linca was no place she wanted to be around for long.

"So what do ya see, Amy?" Rikku asked me, her one perfectly groomed tail whipping around in excitement as she changed the subject yet again.

I turned the dial on the binoculars so I could see each entrance from where I was standing. One was blocked by sand, just like Honey said, and the other two were right next to each other on the left side. "Looks like it hasn't been disturbed in years…"

"Well duh!" the golden vixen snapped, coming up beside me on my right while Honey stayed on my left. "How could anyone get past this huge drop?"

Honey licked her lips and put one hand on her chin as she tapped the side of her mouth in deep thought. "…That reminds me, how are we gonna get down there?"

A moment of utter silence passed between us. I was still looked through the binoculars but I could almost see Rikku turn pale and close her left eye as she thought quickly, Honey slowly starting to tap her foot.

"Uh… crap," Rikku muttered. It was after all her job to find out a way down. At least that's what me and Honey decided when we drew straws to see who would risk their life making a full circle around the gap. "Um… We could fly?"

If we were in an anime, Honey and me would be fake falling with big sweat drops on our heads. Too bad we weren't, because that would actually be very funny.

Taking my gaze away from the runs and lowering the binoculars, I gave my clueless companion a give-me-a-break look.

"Rikku!" Honey snapped, smacking herself in the forward as she plopped down on the sand. "You were supposed to figure out a way down! You're the genius here!"

"Genius in mechanics. Anywhere else, I'm pretty much hopeless," the fox corrected, closing her left eye again and holding her left cheek in her hand in deep thought. "And if you guys weren't keeping secrets from me, I would be able to think clearer…. We could always climb down."

"I would break a nail!" Honey objected, showing her perfectly shaped and filed claws. "Do you want to tick me off?!"

"Excuse me then, Ms. You-need-to-find-a-way-down-but-the-way-you-found-doesn't-work-for-me!" Rikku huffed, folding her arms over her chest and stamping her foot again.

The feline blinked several times as she tried to wrap her brain around the insult her teammate threw at her. "That doesn't even make sense!"

The two were usually always bickering so I just stayed out of it and returned my gaze to the dunes beyond the ruins via Honey's binoculars. "Here we go again."

"I don't have to make sense. Amy agrees with me, right?"

"She agrees with me! Right Amy?"

Damn it! Why do I always end up getting caught in the mid-?

Oh no… Ignoring the persistent shouts of my teammates for me to agree, I rapidly turned the dial on the binoculars to focus in one point just beyond my emerald sight. Please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing…

I was right… I hate being right.

"Amy!" Rikku snapped, giving me a small shove on my arm to grab my attention. "Who's right? Me, your bestest best friend and the brains of the team, or Honey?"

Removing the binoculars again, I turned to look at the two. "Uh, guys? I think who's right is the least of our worries right now."

"Ah, we can figure out a way down later," Honey commented, still sitting down with her hands holding up her top half and her legs stretched out in front of her. "Now tell me I'm right."

"No, I don't mean finding a way down," I objected, pointing to the point just beyond my gaze and handing her the binoculars. "There's a sandstorm heading this way and I, personally, wouldn't want to be buried alive under sand at nineteen!"

**A/N: Nice place to end, don't you think? Anyways, this is basically kind of an insight of the style of Team Rose: Version 2.0. Amy, Honey, and Rikku will all be wearing the outfits and sporting the new looks given to them in this one in the Team Rose Version 2.0 story (TRV2.0 for short). Their relationship will be silmilar compared with this one and if you want to know what the story line will be about, look on my profile at the category titled ideas and future releases. Their theme song will be: Perfect Picture (It Would Be Better) by The Lilyjets (anyone who hasn't heard it, I highly recommend you do, because it is awesome!) just to give you a little insight.**

**Well, stay tuned for chapter 2! (After I update Angelz in Training of course!) And all who review rock so hard! **


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